Resources
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The 19th Wife
By David Ebershoff. This multi-layered novel intertwines the story of Brigham Young's ex-wife Ann Eliza, a real historical figure who successfully campaigned to outlaw plural marriage in the United States, with a modern-day murder mystery in a polygamist Mormon splinter group. The narrative unfolds through fictional documents—correspondence, research papers, autobiographies—suggesting that truth is subjective and many-sided.
The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction
Over 200 inventive exercises to help you break out of old patterns and discover new things about your characters. Kiteley uses word limits rather than time limits to provide discipline and focus. The prompts are grouped according to the technique they are designed to develop (timing, narrative voice, and so forth) and include brief discussions of why they work.
The 300-Word Gateway: How Going Short Can Fast-Track Your Lit Mag Success
In this 2025 guest post on Becky Tuch's Lit Mag News Substack, Darien Gee recommends writing micro stories and essays for both craft and career reasons. Short forms compel you to make every word count, which can help you identify key moments in a longer manuscript and eliminate filler. A portfolio of short pieces gives you many options for submitting to literary journals while you also pursue longer projects.
The Academy of American Poets
Site includes over 1,200 poems by 450 noteworthy poets, with an emphasis on American and 20th century poets. Search by poem, poet and text. Numerous audio selections. See also the Online Poetry Classroom sponsored by the Academy, with its suggested 100 Best Poems to Memorize.
The ADD Writer
In this 2020 blog post, author and writing teacher Michael Jackman shares tips for writing productively with attention deficit disorder. If daily routines and schedules don't suit the way your brain is wired, try some of his strategies for jump-starting your creative enthusiasm, such as exercise, travel, and enjoying cultural events. Above all, take the long view of your productivity and don't measure yourself against people with different needs.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
This Pulitzer-winning epic novel about the golden age of comic book superheroes is also a love song to New York City Jewish culture in the years surrounding World War II. Two boys, a visionary artist who escaped Nazi-occupied Prague and his fast-talking, closeted cousin from Brooklyn, lead the fantasy fight against Hitler by creating the Escapist, a superhero who is a cross between Harry Houdini and the Golem of Jewish legend. However, their real-world dilemmas prove resistant to magical solutions, and can only be resolved through humility, maturity, and love.
The American Aesthetic
Launched in 2014, The American Aesthetic is a quarterly online journal searching for poetry that conveys in its composition—as well as in the sound, cadence, and possibly even musicality of its words—an expression of honesty and purpose that somehow rings true. See website for free sonnet competition with small prizes.
The Art of Invisible Movement
Maggie Stiefvater is the New York Times bestselling author of the Raven Cycle series and other award-winning fantasy and magical realist novels. In this blog post, she advises fiction writers to make the same scene accomplish more than one task. For instance, a quiet, transitional scene does not have to be filler; it should reveal something important about backstory, character, or atmosphere. The key to good pacing is to use a variety of scene structures: earn those quiet moments by interspersing them with higher-energy action.
The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP)
AWP's bimonthly magazine, The Writer's Chronicle, is well worth a subscription, and includes information on grants, awards and publishing opportunities. AWP members may access a special Job List of academic and non-academic jobs. Search AWP's extensive program directory for a writing program near you, and consider attending AWP's popular annual conference, a good value for its seminars, networking and readings.
The Audacity of Prose
In this 2015 essay in the online journal The Millions, Nigerian novelist Chigozie Obioma critiques the fad of literary minimalism, arguing that the glory and purpose of literature is to "magnify the ordinary" through language that rises above everyday banal usage. Obioma's debut novel The Fishermen was published in 2015 by Little, Brown.
The Autism Parent Memoir I’d Love to Read
Are you writing a memoir about raising a child with autism? Consider autistic readers' perspectives to avoid stereotypes. Be curious about other ways of processing information, and strengthen your literary craft with introspection about how your own mind works.
Annie Mydla, Managing Editor
Note: In this article, I mention things that "autistic people do" and experience. This can only ever be a figure of speech, because autistic people are so different from each other. As the saying goes, "If you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person."
As an early-round judge in the North Street Book Prize, I see several parent memoirs (or APMs) per year by non-autistic parents raising an autistic child or children, often with common comorbidities like learning disabilities. My autistic profile outwardly differs from the children these memoirs tend to be about—I'm hyperverbal and lack a learning disability. But we share a lot of underlying difficulties in common:
Sensory processing issues
Interoception, receiving and interpreting physical cues from inside the body. The problem can be receiving too much or too little. I receive too much.
Proprioception, the sense of where the body is in space. I receive too much information.
Difficulty interpreting and acting on social cues in real time
A bottom-up processing style
Intense interests in some areas and none at all in many common ones
Monotropism, the tendency to deeply engage with only one thing at a time, leading to challenges with switching tasks and tasks with multiple steps.
Holotropism, having "wide open sensory gates". Body, mind, surroundings, and other people seem more like one thing than separate things.
I tend to identify with these kids a lot.
For this reason, I read autism stories very, very carefully. I'm looking for The One. The APM that inspires me and makes me happy. And you know what? I've been looking for a while.
Maybe if I write a blog post about it, my dream APM will come to me. So here's a list of the top 7 things I'd like to see in an Autism Parent Memoir.
1. The memoirist knows what they don't know
A big dream of mine is to read an APM where the non-autistic narrator fully recognizes they have no idea what it's like to be autistic. Such an APM could start with a look at the double empathy problem and how it works in the life of a non-autistic parent of an autistic child.
Often, autistic people are described as "not having empathy". But the double empathy problem posits that while autistic people do not always automatically understand where non-autistic people are coming from, the problem is just as great with the non-autistic in not automatically understanding where we are coming from.
Here's a practical demonstration of how the double empathy problem can come into play in an APM. I encountered a memoir in which a mom was frustrated that her child "continued to test his boundaries" by going on "unsanctioned explorations" into other rooms, the yard, or any other place his parents didn't wish him to be at the moment. The parents were continually creating barriers with furniture, brooms, and other household objects, which the child would dismantle before leaving the room. This happened frequently despite all the times the parents explained the rules and punished him for breaking them.
To the narrator, the child was obviously "testing his boundaries". There were no other interpretations offered. But the phrase "testing boundaries" shows assumptions. It implies that a) the child is intentionally breaking the boundaries the parent has set up and b) the child knows he is disobeying the parents.
But is "intentional disobedience" the only interpretation? I don't think so. An autistic reader could think of a number of autism-related motivations for the child's behavior. He might be...
Seeking to escape overstimulation in the household or environment
Seeking solitude (often comfortable for autistic people, to varying degrees depending on the person)
Honoring internal demand avoidance. This is different from disobedience because it is not based on the child's desire to thwart the parent's authority. Demand avoidance is an internal need that occurs with no regard to the nature of the demand itself or who/what is making it.
Another possibility is what I think of as "circuit joy". Some autistic children and adults take pleasure in loops and circuits. Given the fact that the parents keep creating barriers out of household items, the child's behavior could be interpreted as showing evidence of pursuing a complete circuit. The parents create a puzzle with their interesting barrier, the child solves the puzzle, and then the parents have their familiar reaction (in this case yelling, scolding, begging, punishing). For an autistic child enjoying the circuit, the reaction of the parents is part of the reward of completion, even when the parents think that their reaction ought to be interpreted by the child as a deterrent.
Am I insisting that any of these motivations were the actual cause of the child's behavior in that memoir? No. And am I saying that as an autistic person, I would know the child better than his parents do? Again, no. But the fact is that there are many motivations which to an autistic person may be very pressing and/or rewarding, but of which a non-autistic parent might be unaware. It would be wonderful to read an APM that resists projecting assumptions on autistic children's behavior in situations where there are other possibilities.
2. The memoirist relates their understanding of their child's inner experience to their own lives
Something I have never seen in an APM, but would seriously love to, is a plotline in which the parent strives to relate to the child on their own terms. Eventually, the parent becomes able to see their own self-identified non-autistic lives through autistic lenses. This happens quite a bit in real life, sometimes to the point where a parent seeks autism screening for themselves. But I've yet to encounter it in an APM.
In that ideal memoir, we might see the parent asking themselves questions like:
My autistic child has sensory needs. But what are my sensory needs as an adult, self-identified non-autistic person? How do light, sound, movement, texture, temperature, and more impact my mood? My ability to focus, switch tasks, complete steps?
Answering questions like this, the parent may realize that they can't stand the breeze generated by their ceiling fan, they dislike working in their office while the neighbor is mowing the lawn, or they become unduly irritated when other drivers leave their high beams on at night. I could imagine an APM in which the parent avoids these sources of aggravation or changes their reaction to them, in the meantime learning how to help their autistic child to avoid their own sensory stressors. It also becomes easier for the parent to write their memoir due to the lack of sensory irritation—and to weave tension and relief through their narrative by using sensory triggers in some scenes.
How are my interoception and proprioception? How do they impact my experience of the world and of myself? Are they making my experience different from other people's, or different than what I'd have liked?
Perhaps the narrator thinks back to gym class in middle school and how they were embarrassed by never being able to catch the ball, or how they still sometimes put both feet into one pant leg even when they are paying attention (proprioceptive issues). Or if they get sick, they can't tell right away, so they always end up leaving work in the middle of the day rather than staying home to begin with (an interoceptive issue). These realizations help them empathize with some of the things their own child has trouble with and also leads them to forgive themselves for their "non-optimal" behavior. The end-of-day headache they've been attributing to working too much on their memoir, they now realize, is actually due to hunger. Their hypo-ability in that interoceptive arena makes them forget to eat. They start using a snack timer while writing and end the day in a much better mood.
What is my level of verbal processing and production on any given day? When I am tired, stressed, or overwhelmed, versus when I am relaxed?
I picture an arc in which the parent often yells at their children in the mornings before school. However, due to learning more about autism, they realize that their own verbal processing needs extra time to "wake up" in the morning. The parent then realizes that they were becoming upset by the noise and demand to respond in the morning—and that starting to yell at everyone was making it worse. Steps could be taken to make the morning routine calmer and quieter for everyone's benefit—especially the autistic child, who also needs a verbal warmup time each day. Later, the parent found that the quiet time in the morning made it easier to transition into whatever they were doing next, like doing their job or working on their memoir.
Do I have a bottom-up processing style, where I see details first and then the big picture, or a top-down processing style, where I see the big picture first and then zoom in on details?
Maybe the parent has always had clashes with their parents, teachers, co-workers, and bosses due to asking too many "nit-picky" questions. The parent learns that they have a bottom-up processing style thanks to researching their child's autism and is more aware of why they need so much information before starting a project. They become more strategic in how they ask questions and also use a broader range of resources to get the answers they need. This experience helps them to replace irritation at their child's probing questions with a sense of the child's desire to please them by really getting things right. The parent also identifies that their detail-loving disposition has been slowing down their memoir-writing process, though it has been a significant strength in writing immersive scenes.
What is my executive functioning like day to day? Do I ever have trouble making or keeping plans, focusing on a single task, or completing tasks? Do I procrastinate (either naturally or to avoid coming up against other executive functioning problems)?
A parent who has always deplored their own inability to concentrate learns about monotropism, and through that, polytropism—the need for a wider variety of topics and tasks in order to maintain their mood and productivity. The parent can then forgive themselves and focus on arranging their lifestyle to fit their needs. It also strengthens a sense of solidarity with their child. They both struggle with executive functioning—just from different ends. And now the parent can reconsider whether they really need to be so down on themselves for having a stop-and-start pattern in writing their memoir.
Do I ever experience black-and-white thinking, difficulties putting information and priorities into a hierarchy, or demand avoidance?
Autism parents often have to deal with stigma and ignorance in other people's reactions to autism. The parent in question has had some negative interactions with fellow parents, leading them to reject the social scene in their neighborhood. But now the parent has learned about black-and-white thinking—the knee-jerk reaction that something is all one way or all another. That leads them to reflect that the neighborhood parents have had a range of reactions, not all of them bad. The parent is now more equipped to interact with the neighbors on a case-by-case basis and be more aware of black-and-white thinking traps in the future, including with their own child and in the process of writing their memoir.
Is changing plans uncomfortable for me? Do I need a certain amount of time to process plan changes? Is my experience different depending on whether it is me changing the plan, or I am subjected to someone else's change of plan?
Let's say the author's family moved to a new house six months ago. The parent hasn't worked on the memoir a single time since, even though everything has been unpacked for at least three months. In the past the parent would have scolded themselves for being lazy. But learning more about the child's autism has given them the awareness that their own brains can take time and bandwidth to process change. A month or so later, they've processed the change and are working on their memoir again.
The questions above, and many others related to autism, affect every human to various degrees. But for autistic people, they and others define our lives, shape our experiences, and inform our priorities, personalities and actions. I'd love to read an APM that has the protagonist transforming their own vision of how their brain works based on what they learn about autistic people's inner experiences.
3. The narrator takes responsibility for the situations they put their child into and what happens next
Memoirs need empathy for their subjects. They need to show curiosity. A memoir is not just a record—it is an exploration. The memoirist takes responsibility for their own point of view and questions it, looking at it from a variety of angles. If the parent-memoirist isn't doing that, then the APM is not a memoir. It is an exercise in venting, self-justification, and editorializing. And no memoir is going to win the North Street Book Prize like that, autism or no autism!
The APMs we receive could do more to zero in on that explorative element, deeply reflecting on what happened and the author's part in it.
For example, I read an APM once in which the parent takes their child to the zoo. Soon, the child begins to chew on their fingers and refuses to budge from the middle of a crowded walkway. The parent tries to get them to stop chewing on their fingers and move along. The child is unwilling and starts to cry. The parent insists, lowers the child's hand away from their mouth, and tries to gently lead them off the path. The child breaks down. People stare and the parent feels judged. The narrator's conclusion to the episode expressed that: My child is such a riddle. Autism makes them act erratically. Fortunately, I'm a patient and caring person.
They may well be a patient and caring person in general. But that doesn't change the fact that they've brought their child to a loud, bright, movement-filled place without any form of protection (ear protection, sunglasses). The environment may be new for the child, which is another hardship for those of us with difficulties with change and hyperawareness of spatiality. These factors inevitably lead to the agony of overwhelm, which we observe in how the child reacts.
I see scenes like this in APMs all the time and always have trouble accepting how the narrator makes the child responsible for what happened, rather than rethinking their own actions: bringing the child to an overwhelming spot without giving them sensory protection or other accommodations. The child has been set up not just for failure, but for physical and mental pain and humiliation. Ultimately, such episodes are stories of a power struggle between the parent and the child, in which the child always loses.
It would be wonderful to see an APM from a parent who was fully aware of these dynamics and took personal responsibility for the situations they put their child into, and what happened next—treating the memoir as an opportunity to investigate rather than simply to vent or editorialize.
4. The memoirist acknowledges the parent-child power imbalance and is careful not to abuse it in their book
Speaking of power dynamics, I would treasure the chance to read an APM in which the memoirist shows awareness of the power imbalance in the parent-child relationship—especially while writing the memoir. As described above, the parent has power over the child's physical experiences. But the parent also has control as a writer, deciding:
How to describe the child inside and out ("Good"? "Bad"? "Sick"? "Inspiring"?)
How to characterize autism (A "battle"? A "superpower"? A lifelong neurobiological condition?)
How to interpret the situations in the book ("My child behaved badly at the zoo" versus "I put my child in a challenging situation, and it was too much")
I'd be so glad to read an APM that examines the author-to-subject power imbalance alongside that of the parent and child.
5. The memoirist demonstrates awareness that actual autistic people might read their book
APMs are often a way for the memoirist to vent and connect with other autism parents. That's wonderful—parents of autistic children need and deserve validation and solidarity.
On the other hand, writing exclusively for other non-autistic parents of autistic children can lead memoirists to write as though no autistic person will ever read their book. As a result of this, the content and language can become exploitative and dehumanizing without the non-autistic writer even realizing what's going on. Autistic readers, though, will pick up on these things immediately.
When I say "exploitative," I mean material that puts the child's most vulnerable moments in the world for all to see. Some exploitative scenes I've read in APMs include depicting the child:
Having a meltdown in a public place
Opening their own diaper and throwing feces around the living room
Fighting (verbally or physically) with teachers, doctors, or other authority figures
Wetting the bed longer into their childhood than their peers
Banging their head on a table or wall
Non-autistic autism parents may relate to these scenes, but is it worth it? The child's privacy has been violated, and any autistic reader who comes across the book will be horrified. Does any child deserve to have these private moments of vulnerability, fear, pain, and overstimulation exposed on Amazon? And what does it say about the parent's feelings about their own child that they would allow that to happen? In contrast, I'd like to read an APM that honor the child's privacy and dignity and shows the parent's solidarity with the child.
APMs that don't anticipate autistic readers can also be prone to using dehumanizing language. For example, I read a book this year where the memoirist called her son a "monster child" and compared him to "the worst situations in life." I respect the author's personal experience of raising their child. Maybe to her, it really did seem like he was a monster. But to go from that internal experience, to publishing a book that characterizes an autistic child as a monster and of autism as a monster inside, is troubling. I could tell that the book was not meant for autistic eyes.
I read too many APMs that characterize autism as something other than a neurobiological condition—for example, "monster". Other phrases put a supernatural spin on autism, calling it a "superpower" or a "curse". A classic is when autism parents are called "warriors" who "fight to rescue" the child (autism is not a war or a case of kidnapping!)
The internal experience of autism is more complex than "fighting" or being a "superhero". Nothing about autism is all one way or all the other, and every autistic person has different struggles and strengths in different parts of life. That's why, when I see this kind of language in a memoir, it's a red flag. I'd love to see an APM that dissects these terms and how they're normally used in memoirs. Meanwhile, there are good resources out there for researching how to use more supportive and understanding language that won't shut out autistic readers:
https://www.amaze.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Talking-about-autism-a-media-resource_web.pdf
https://www.autism.org.uk/contact-us/media-enquiries/how-to-talk-and-write-about-autism
Any APMs that care to critique, satirize, or subvert these labels are so much more than welcome in my life and on my bookshelf!
6. The book calls out ignorance, unfairness, and bigotry in individuals and society
I haven't given up on APMs. In fact, I've seen some good stuff. One of my favorite things to find in an APM is when the author pushes back against all the ways autistic people are misunderstood, belittled, and othered. For example, I've seen memoirs where:
The parent stands up to a therapist who kept referring to autistic children as burdens.
The narrator, a special education teacher of autistic children, corrects a child's homeroom teacher whose beliefs about autism are outdated and prejudiced.
The father of an autistic child confronts a GP who won't let his child wear light-protective headwear in the examination room.
When these episodes happen in APMs, I want to stand up and cheer. They make me feel that the parent might be on my side if I was in such a situation. Which leads me to...
7. The memoir shows solidarity with autistic people
As I look back at this long list, what it really amounts to is a desire for autism parent memoirs to show solidarity with autistic people. It would be wonderful to see narratives by parents who are going the extra mile to be not only autism parents, but autism allies.
And by autism allies, I don't just mean wearing blue on Autism Awareness Day, or having a puzzle piece pin on your hat. I mean letting autistic ways of life start to inform your way of life. Don't take it for granted that it's your right to lead, explain, define. Go our way for a while, and let it change you—and what you write in your memoir.
One personal anecdote before I close. I have a severe light sensitivity and often have to wear sunglasses inside. I'll never forget the joy I felt when, during a Zoom consultation on a crime novel, the critique client put their own sunglasses on in solidarity. I asked him, what inspired you to do that?
Turns out he was an autism parent.
The Bad Version
The Bad Version, a print and online journal, is produced by a group of recent Harvard grads, who met during their time at The Advocate and The Crimson. They publish essays, fiction, and poetry, and all of their published pieces have responses to them that comment on the piece, challenge it, and further its ideas. Editors say, "We picture The Bad Version as a snapshot of an ever-evolving conversation."
The Bare Life Review
Founded in 2017, The Bare Life Review is a literary biannual devoted entirely to work by immigrant and refugee authors. Though the impulse behind its creation was political—to support a population currently under attack—the journal's focus remains wholly artistic, publishing work on a wide variety of themes. Submissions are accepted August 15-November 30. Contributors must be foreign-born writers living in the US, or writers living abroad who hold refugee or asylum-seeker status. Translations are accepted. This is a paying market.
The Barricade
By Ned Condini
I would be glad to take his place
like a prince of orphans, to enjoy
my pinch of power in the royal hall.
But this elusive king leaves the door
ajar, warm coffee on the table,
the lights on & the book still open.
I lunge thinking there's the answer
& find a whiff of incense wafting
beyond the room into the dark where he vanished.
I know he will always be
millions of years away from me,
isolated on the remotest star;
yet the fact that he seems to move
when I, too, move makes me believe I'm on his track.
Fulfilling myself yet struggling
to get rid of the self that's me,
I am the Pompei man who saw
what was coming yet stretched out his hand to save
one piece at least of the barricade erected
against you, fighting you tooth and nail,
gripping the axe of his youth.
The Bean Trees
Written in 1988, the first novel by this now well-known author and activist is first of all a heartwarming and funny story about an unlikely "family of choice" formed by a single mother and her baby, a young woman fleeing her dead-end Southern town, and an abandoned Native American toddler. More ambitious than the typical "relationship novel", the story puts a human face on political issues like interracial adoption and the plight of South American refugees.
The Best American Short Stories 1999
A particularly fine installment of this annual series, the 1999 anthology includes a wide spectrum of styles and ethnic backgrounds, with emotionally compelling tales that leave the reader with much to ponder. Standouts include Nathan Englander's 'The Tumblers', which casts the shadow of the Holocaust over Yiddish folklore's mythical village of Chelm; Sheila Kohler's 'Africans', a quietly chilling account of a family's disintegration under apartheid; and Heidi Julavits' 'Marry the One Who Gets There First', an unlikely love story told through wedding-album outtakes.
The Best of Michael Swanwick
By Michael Swanwick. This first volume in a career retrospective of the award-winning speculative fiction author spans over 25 years of creative tales about planetary consciousness, time travel, steampunk con artists, dinosaur tourist attractions, and what would be gained and lost if we could re-engineer the human brain.
The Big Book of Exit Strategies
By Jamaal May. The award-winning poet's second collection from Alice James Books explores bereavement, masculinity, risk, tenderness, gun violence, and the unacknowledged vitality of his beloved Detroit, in verse that is both muscular and musical. Nominated for the 2017 NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry.
The Bind
Founded by award-winning poet Rochelle Hurt, The Bind is an online journal that reviews poetry books by women and nonbinary authors. They review chapbooks, full-length collections, hybrid works, and translations. The Bind is interested in intersectional and feminist writing. Read a 2017 interview with Hurt on Trish Hopkinson's blog. Visit their website for guidelines for pitching articles and requesting reviews.
The BitterSweet Review
Launched in London in 2022, The BitterSweet Review is a publishing platform dedicated to the advancement of queer literature and visual culture. In addition to the biannual literary journal, which is published in print and online, they offer workshops and limited-edition artwork for sale.
The Block
By Sherry Ballou Hanson
I used to be an oak
before they cut me down.
I was substantial they said.
Catholic bells pealed for generations
and stars danced in my branches
all the nights of my life
as a tree in a wood
along the Thames
but things change. One day they came
and I was hauled out dead
before the sun had set;
better to have silvered among the stumps
than do the devil's work.
I was paired with axe
and together we served the Tower
four hundred long years,
shrinking from the screams at Tyburn
and the mob at Tower Hill
until it was our turn.
The first was worst, a mess of blood,
the severed head cut loose;
we scarce could stand the shame.
When Lady Jane knelt at last,
I felt my death again, wondered
how axe and I came to this fate,
but one goes on.
When the Earl of Essex
finally bowed his head,
we prayed for a sharpened blade.
Seven times we stood to the duty.
Axe kept his shine and I my gloss
but we were hollowed out.
Scrubbed clean now we are shunned
by all except the rack and manacles.
Nights in the Tower are cold,
and life was beautiful as a tree.
This poem was published in her collection A Cab to Stonehenge (Just Write Books, 2006) and was part of the portfolio that won the 2014 Paumanok Poetry Award.
The Blue Mountain Review
Published by the Southern Collective, the Blue Mountain Review is a quarterly journal of arts and culture. They publish interviews with writers, lit mag editors, artists, and musicians, plus original poetry, fiction, and essays. See their website for the current theme for their annual poetry chapbook contest.
The Blues
By Joan Gelfand
"I think there's something in the pain of the blues, something deep, that touches something ancient in Jewish DNA." —Marshall Chess, founder of Chess Records, producer of Chicago blues.
It was news to me that Jews took up the chore of indigo
Dyeing. It was messy, a job in which no noble
Deigned to engage. Fingers, forearms, clothes,
Stained from steaming vats.
"The stench," they complained.
And, holding their noses they
Created a tone so rarified women fought for the right to buy.
A logical progression, this blue
Manufactured by Jews who, as you knew,
Never felt at home—and still don't.
This blue, encoded in the bones, was royal, leaped centuries to David's harp
His poems of yearning for God and Jonathan's forbidden love.
These blues wept and bled, crept along diaspora routes
All the way to Dylan. Today, we mourn Pittsburgh Jews.
The same hands that mixed indigo, lent a hand to suffering wanderers, immigrants,
The displaced, murdered. They recalled their own treacherous crossings.
The blues. The Shoah. Dachau, Pittsburgh.
Indigo, David, bloodlines. Lines of blood
And still, an outstretched arm, an open hand.
The Book Canopy
The Book Canopy is a monthly online book discussion group. They seek to build community among writers and readers through discussing socially relevant contemporary literature.
The Book Designer
This site, run by publishing and graphic design expert Joel Friedlander, gives resources to help self-publishing authors design professional-looking books. The site includes articles on marketing, a guide to software options, typeface suggestions, and book design templates.
The Book of Folly
The mother goddess of female confessional poets, Sexton brings back the truths that lie on the other side of madness. The sonnet sequence "Angels of the Love Affair" presents a visceral depiction of psychosis that is almost unbearably real.
The Book Rescuer
By Sue Macy, illustrated by Stacy Innerst. This inspiring picture-book biography of Aaron Lansky, founder of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, is enhanced with Chagall-inspired paintings of Jewish history. A good story in its own right, the book can also prompt educational conversations about heritage and assimilation, for children of Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds alike.
The Bookends Review
Founded in 2012 by creative writing and composition professor Jordan Blum, The Bookends Review is an online journal publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, author interviews, essays, book reviews, and visual/musical works from around the world.
The Boy in the Rain
By Stephanie Cowell. In this bittersweet historical novel set in Edwardian England, a young painter and an aspiring socialist politician fall in love, but their idyll is overshadowed by the criminalization of homosexuality. This book stands out for its meditative, introspective prose and its insight into how the bonds of love are tested, broken, and re-created as two people mature.
The Bride Price
Bittersweet romance set on the American frontier tells the story of a white woman and a half-Indian soldier who hope their love is strong enough to survive prejudice and the dangers of army life. The hero's seduction of a married woman is hard to square with his generally noble character, but his displays of leadership and grace under pressure are worth emulating.
The Brown Bookshelf
This book review website is designed to raise awareness of the myriad of African-American voices writing for young readers. Their flagship initiative is 28 Days Later, a month-long showcase of the best in Picture Books, Middle Grade and Young Adult novels written and illustrated by African-Americans.
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
We are straying from poetry here, but it's worth it. This contest asks entrants to compose the opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels. Named for Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, originator of Snoopy's favorite opening line, 'It was a dark and stormy night.' Entry is free. The winner receives notoriety. Read the Lyttony of Grand Prize Winners.
The Business of Being a Writer
By Jane Friedman. The expert publishing blogger teaches writers about the economics of their industry in this book from the University of Chicago Press. The book is intended to help writers craft a realistic plan for earning money from their work.
The Cafe Review
Contributors have included Paul Muldoon and Taylor Mali.
The Caged Guerrilla
The Caged Guerrilla is a podcast by incarcerated writer Raheem A. Rahman about prison life, urban culture, the barriers we build for ourselves in society, and the struggle to stay free in spirit. His book of poetry and reflections by the same title is available on Amazon.
The Carcinogenic Bride
When the Big C meets the Big D, all you can do is laugh. At least, that's where poet Cindy Hochman's survival instinct takes her. Packed with more puns than a Snickers bar has peanuts, this chapbook from Thin Air Media Press brings energetic wit to bear on those modern monsters, breast cancer and divorce. To order a copy ($5.00), email Cindy at poet2680@aol.com.
The Case Against Happiness
The genially bewildered characters in this unique first collection of poetry try and fail to fit themselves into the American dream of personal satisfaction, but only because they are genuinely groping for a more substantial mode of existence that always remains just beyond the margins of thought and language. Pecqueur's wild associative leaps mirror his inability to find the coherent, contented self that the Enlightenment promised. This book won the 2005 Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books.
The Center of the Universe
By P.M. Flynn
Behind,
thick stones are colder, deeper than time emptied,
poured into each moment that passes between clouds
that eventually disappear on the horizon.
Shadows on darkness fall from the mountains:
the sacred moving slower than geologists say,
as we turn to the bright autumn air.
(Clouds fall even in darkness.)
Under each rising sun, when there is no darkness; still—
they've always fallen. When there are shadows they fall again:
today; on the ground with less space for the sun or moon.
Before you left falling behind, before you left falling
from them, sounds always fell behind the horizon:
what is lowest behind each forest;
like trees circling the imperfect edges of me,
fallen;
touched.
There, I hear a voice before I was made, before midnight
when the universe of blue spaces between clouds of importance
closed; space you ran to seeking another new moon, or sun;
or sky with horizons closer to the center of the universe.
In seeking the center,
the blue spaces of universe first;
first:
there is no mountain,
then there is;
then there is no mountain.
(I've heard my heartbeat there.)
Then there is.
If there is darkness, you will know. If there is darkness
in the stillness between shadows falling across these mountains
I already know.
The Chapbook Review
The name of this monthly online journal is self-explanatory. In addition to reviews of new poetry and literary prose chapbooks, the site features critical essays and interviews with authors and publishers. Reviews display a lively voice and eclectic tastes.
The Character Therapist
Having trouble with your fictional characters' motivations? Wondering how to depict mental illness accurately? Jeannie Campbell, LMFT, will sit your imaginary friends down on the couch for a diagnosis.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition
Create work that meets today's professional standards with guidance on grammar, usage, formats, design and sourcing (including electronic and online sources).
The Child Finder
By Rene Denfeld. This beautifully written thriller goes deep into the minds of survivors of intergenerational trauma: some who become healers and heroes, pitted against others who pass on the evil that was done to them. In the snowbound mountain forests of the Pacific Northwest, a famed investigator with her own barely-remembered abuse history searches for a little girl who was kidnapped three years ago. Meanwhile, this resilient and imaginative child tries to maintain her sanity in captivity, by reliving her favorite fairy tale and forming a bittersweet survival bond with her captor.
The Choosing America Project
Award-winning writers and filmmakers Ricky and Lia Friesem are compiling authentic dramatic anecdotes (1,500-3,000 words) from immigrants who chose to live in America. They hope to turn some of these stories into short films that will be shown in the movies and broadcast on TV. "We are looking for those special moments, encounters, surprises, experiences, disappointments, which vividly convey what it's like to be an immigrant in America. The good, the bad, the sad, the miraculous, the joyful—every anecdote is welcome as long as it's authentic and well told." See submission guidelines on website.
The Chosen One
This chilling and all-too-real story takes place inside a fundamentalist polygamist cult in the Utah desert. Thirteen-year-old Kyra loves her extended family and tries not to question the elders' tightening grip on their lives, but when they command her to marry her 60-year-old uncle, she plans a desperate escape that could put her life at risk. Billed as a young adult novel, this book may be too disturbing for some readers in that age group.
The Clash of Life
I'm easing home across the hills and angling west to a sinking sun,
When suddenly in a clash of wills two hawks are at it, one on one,
With flashing wings and slashing bills—to fight all night for pride won't run.
They wheel and rise and go much higher, then turn and peel into a dive
That streaks the sun with a flash of fire; they swoop on up that each may strive
To make the cast they each desire—could either one remain alive?
But just as swiftly as the fight began one was struck with a telling blow
And then as vanquished turned and ran, a desperate glide to the void below
Far from the sun and the eyes of man—to the haven only darkness could bestow.
But the victor rose once more on high, to salute in triumph the fading light,
As though into the sinking sun to fly, to cut its rays with glistening might,
To stake his claim to all the sky—then turned and streaked beyond my sight.
As I turned to follow the homeward trail the red of the sun was almost done,
But that clash of hawks, one strong one frail, had asked of me would I be brave or run,
Would I in the clash of life prevail—to make my glory flash in the sinking sun.
Copyright 2006 by John R. Sabine
Critique by Jendi Reiter
I chose this month's critique poem, "The Clash of Life" by John R. Sabine, for its skillful use of rhyme and meter and its dramatic imagery. Sabine's is an old-fashioned poem, not just stylistically, but also in the boldness with which the author delineates the moral lesson that we should take from nature.
Nineteenth-century writers were especially fond of such exhortations and inspirational conclusions in their nature poetry. Examples include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Seaweed" (urging the strong-willed poet to seize and preserve fleeting moments), William Cullen Bryant's "To a Waterfowl" (the bird returning safely to its nest gives him assurance of heaven), and William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" (seeing our mistreatment of animals as a sign of original sin). Emily Dickinson also frequently compared herself to small creatures such as birds, insects, or flowers, to remind herself to be content with the crumbs of happiness that God gave her. (See, for example, #230, #335, #442.)
With the decline of traditional religion among the intelligentsia, and the advent of Darwinism, this type of poem fell out of fashion because it was no longer taken for granted that nature revealed God's moral order. We see glimmerings of this doubt in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam", from which comes the famous phrase "nature red in tooth and claw", and the skeptical tone of voice had become well-established by the time of Robert Frost's "Design". However, the popularity of contemporary poets like Mary Oliver suggests that there is still an audience for optimistic, inspiring pastoral verse.
Sabine's poem displays some of the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of the genre. On the plus side, humanity has always sensed that the animal world contained spiritual wisdom. Most of us have known the feeling of kinship with a creature whose struggles and passions seemed to mirror our own. This moment of recognition, similar to what we feel when a work of art touches us deeply, somehow ennobles our personal drama by suggesting that it is connected to a universal story. On the minus side, poems that draw a neat moral from nature can be unsatisfying because they leave out too much of the strangeness that makes nature so awe-inspiring. Sometimes her lessons are neither clear nor heartwarming.
"The Clash of Life" takes this very precariousness as its subject. Sabine shows us the fearful glory of the hawks' battle to the death. Nature is beautiful but also terrible. In fact, it is nature's lack of compassion for weakness that pushes these creatures to heroic extremes of strength and skill. Though the awareness of danger and uncertainty fits the modern sensibility, this poem harks back to the Victorians in its confidence that the human observer can be the master of his fate. It does not end with a message of submission to natural law or the superior sensitivity of animals, the way contemporary nature poetry often does, but with acceptance of "survival of the fittest" as a principle of self-improvement.
The lack of moral ambiguity in this poem—the defeated hawk does not get a lot of sympathy—for me makes the lesson somewhat less realistic and compelling. On the other hand, Sabine's unabashed celebration of a victorious warrior strikes a nice note of contrast to the maudlin sanctification of the underdog that afflicts much contemporary poetry about politics or the environment. Every era has its characteristic extremes.
Despite the cautionary words above, I wouldn't advise Sabine to change the poem much. My main edits would be to tighten the phrasing of some lines so that the meter flows more smoothly, because the beat plays such a key role in transmitting the energy and tension of the scene.
I was also perplexed by the phrase "to make the cast they each desire". Since the hawks are probably not auditioning for a play, I assumed they were fighting over prey, "casting" the way a fisherman casts a line. "Cast" here would mean something like aiming correctly to hit their target. The unusual use of the word makes the storyline unclear, though, and I would change it to something like "seize the prey" if that is what Sabine is trying to describe.
The template for each line of this poem is eight iambs, with the rhymes on the fourth and eighth stressed syllables of each line in the stanza—basically an ABABAB rhyme scheme without the line breaks after the A's. Omitting those line breaks emphasizes the hawks' headlong, high-pressure race to survive.
If Sabine wanted to make the meter of the first line more regular, he could eliminate the word "west" because we already know that the sun sets in the west. "Angling toward the sinking sun" would convey the same information. Since the first two stanzas follow the meter quite precisely, this change is optional. Slight variations (as in line 2, with the extra unstressed syllable in "suddenly," or the two-syllable rhymes "higher/fire/desire") help avoid a sing-song intonation.
The meter becomes more careless in the third stanza, and here I feel that editing is more necessary. Fortunately, most of the key words and phrases can be preserved. I would rewrite it along these lines:
"But swiftly as the fight began, one hawk sustained [or "was struck"] a telling blow
And then as vanquished turned and ran, a desperate glide to the void below
Far from the sun and the eyes of man—for darkness its haven to bestow."
The last line is still a bit wordy, but I like the rhetorical pattern of the first half enough to retain it. The reversed verb order in the second half is old-fashioned, but that does not seem out of place in this poem.
The first line of the final stanza could be rewritten as "the reddening day was almost done". This avoids the repetition of the word "sun" and the excessive internal rhymes using that sound. In the next line, I would tighten the meter again by omitting "of me".
I'm having a hard time with the final line, because it has 20 syllables rather than the correct 16—a bagginess that lessens its impact in a poem that just has to end with a bang—yet the phrases themselves strike just the right note, and I'm hesitant to pick them apart. "To make my glory flash in the sinking sun" has at least two too many syllables, but every word is necessary. The "sinking" sun suggests that the window of opportunity is brief, and that death overshadows even the victor. This tragic irony is essential in a poem that could otherwise feel too triumphalist. Possible rewrites are "Would I in the clash of life prevail—my glory flash in the sinking sun" or "a glorious flash in the sinking sun", but perhaps these are less satisfying in terms of meaning. Such are the tough choices that formal poetry requires! I commend Sabine for telling a compelling story in natural-sounding contemporary language, while remaining mostly within the constraints of his chosen form.
Where could a poem like "The Clash of Life" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Firstwriter.com International Poetry Competition
Entries must be received by October 1
Prizes up to 500 pounds for poems 30 lines or less (published or unpublished), from UK-based writers' resource site; enter online only
Edgar Bowers Prize
Postmark Deadline: October 15
One of several Georgia Poetry Society contests offering $75 for unpublished poems, this prize commemorates Georgia poet Edgar Bowers (1924-2000), whose compact and rigorous formalism defined the spirit of his work
Soul-Making Literary Competition
Postmark Deadline: November 30
Prizes up to $100 for poetry and prose that illuminates humanity's search for the sacred and the drive to realize one's potential; sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women (Nob Hill Branch) but open to both men and women
Other publications that might welcome a poem like "The Clash of Life" include Measure: An Annual Review of Formal Poetry (successor to The Formalist) and the e-zine The HyperTexts.
This poem and critique appeared in the September 2006 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
The Cloud That Contained the Lightning
By Cynthia Lowen. Elegant and unforgiving as equations, these poems hold us accountable for living in the nuclear age. Persona poems in the voice of J. Robert Oppenheimer, "the father of the atomic bomb", reveal self-serving rationalizations and belated remorse, while other poems give voice to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This collection is notable for exposing the emotional logic of scientific imperialism, rather than revisiting familiar scenes of the bomb's devastating effects. Winner of the National Poetry Series, selected by Nikky Finney.
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour, Volume 6: The Crime Stories
The famed writer of Westerns was also a master of the hard-boiled crime story. These action-packed noir tales are populated with treacherous dames, mobsters, prizefighters, coal miners, scam artists, and decent guys trying to survive against the odds.
The Comics Journal
An online publication from comics press Fantagraphics, The Comics Journal features in-depth history, creator interviews, and reviews of comics and graphic narratives.
The Common
The Common is affiliated with Amherst College in Massachusetts. The editorial board includes well-known authors such as Richard Wilbur, Mary Jo Salter, and Honor Moore. Editors say, "The Common publishes fiction, essays, poetry, documentary vignettes, and images that embody particular times and places both real and imagined; from deserts to teeming ports; from Winnipeg to Beijing; from Earth to the Moon: literature and art powerful enough to reach from there to here."
The Complete Review
Reviews for over 900 books new and old. Concise and opinionated. Good at calling attention to obscure but worthy books. Genres include poetry. We also enjoy their blog, the Literary Saloon.
